


Severus Snape and the Imaginary Engines

by LadyHeliotrope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Thomas the Tank Engine - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Coping, Depression, Destroying Childhood Memories, Dissociation, Escape, Escapism, Friendship, Gen, Imaginary Friends, Imagination, Loneliness, Major character death - Freeform, Other, Psychological Trauma, Psychology, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22509823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHeliotrope/pseuds/LadyHeliotrope
Summary: Everyone knows that Severus Snape had no real friends save Lily. He had to make imaginary ones. This story spans Snape's entire double life, one foot in the real world and one in that of Rev. W. Awdry's steam engine trains. Not AU. Oneshot.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	Severus Snape and the Imaginary Engines

Major thanks are in order to mw87, for going through this piece with a fine-tooth comb no less than three times. Thanks so much, darling!

**Snape and the Imaginary Engines of Neverland**

Whilst it was generally thought that Severus Snape was a man of logic, the man himself privately acknowledged that he was, too often, a man of emotion.

For this, he berated himself constantly, believing that perhaps if he told himself how inefficient it made him to be driven by his softer senses, his gears might run on alternative fuel. Actually, it was quite the contrary. One who knew the inner workings of his mind might observe that his emotions, because he thought so much of them, never disappeared. In fact, they became more volatile the more he tried to quell them.

Sometimes he thought of Lily—her constant optimism, infallible good-cheer, and eternal tendency to nag —but sometimes he did not because he knew what dangers it posed to him. Thinking about Lily roused him incredibly, for she was his first and only human love, and her venerated image only grew more sacred with every passing day. While Snape was not religious (for how could he Give Thanks for his wretched lot in life?) the closest he came to it was his hero-worship of the lovely lady to whom he rarely alluded, but who constantly consumed his every second thought when he could not ruthlessly suppress her memory.

However, she was not his only ethereal concern. Much of the rest of the time, his passions followed the whims of the railway.

Both of his great loves were founded in his childhood. It has often been remarked that Severus' best days were those before he reached twelve years old, and this is quite sadly correct. Not only were those the years of close friendship with Lily, but they were also those of unashamedly reading the works of Rev. Wilbert Awdry. Whenever he was not doting on the former, he was inevitably contemplating the latter.

Of course, he thought a lot about his future at Hogwarts, Potions, and Dark Magic, but he viewed and studied these in a purely academic light. They were not 'fun'. Even Lily was relegated to the category of 'girls', and was therefore not strictly or consistently 'fun'. However, he could safely say that trains were _always_ 'fun'.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

It was the best day he could remember when Mr. Evans took his daughters and near-adopted son on a little trip to a 'train museum'. In a more technical sense, this was his way of mixing business with the children's pleasure on Mrs. Evan's Saturday Off. The 'museum' was far from extensive, consisting of two scrapped engines in the back meadow of Mr. Evans' business colleague's home, but the children made the most of the experience. In particular, Severus was ecstatic.

"Tuney," he yelled from the top of the wood-box, "Keep off this one. This is Lily's engine."

Petunia had only gotten as far as the fender, and she was nervous of heights anyways.

"Wooh, wooh!" screamed little Lily excitedly, pulling on levers and things inside the cabin. The train, of course, was in no danger of moving, what with it being on a gravel-covered siding, long run-down and no longer of use to any railway.

"I don' want to have that one, anyhow," Petunia screeched, leaping off of the fender and onto the ground. Smoothing her dress in a conscientious manner—she had just turned eleven, and was feeling rather grown-up compared to her sister and Severus—she walked regally over to the other engine and looked at its formidable front.

In an instant, Severus had scrambled off Lily's engine and clambered up onto the other one.

"Ding, ding ding!" he shrieked like a banshee, and hit something metal in the cabin to make the sound more realistic. "Move off the track, move off the track! Get along there, you cow, or you'll be caught up in the cow-catcher! Move off, move off! Get along there!"

"Cow?" exclaimed Petunia, affronted and hurt. "I'm not a _cow!"_

"Well, I s'pose you'd rather be a cow _ard?"_ Severus taunted wickedly, throwing a grin at Lily, who was leaning a little ways out her engine's cabin window.

"Sev, that's not nice!" Lily retorted, defending her sister.

"Fine, sorry Tuney," he said, fingers crossed behind his back. He really _did_ dislike Petunia Evans. He continued to yell, "Move off the track, move off the track, move off the track!"

Petunia obliged, since she had no interest in playing the lady-being-run-over, but Severus had another trick in mind.

"Screeeeeeeeaeoueaouaohaeeich!" he screamed, holding onto the cabin's rusty railing, pretending to have been thrown back by the train's sudden halt. "Everybody off," he called to an imaginary length of coaches, "We've run into a snowdrift."

"Snow!" criticized Petunia shrilly. "How can you think of snow at a time like this? It's the middle of June!"

Ignoring this hardly-relevant fact, Severus jumped nimbly out of the cabin onto the dry grass, gesturing for Lily to come down and join him.

"We've got to do something about this," he said, sounding urgent, "The mail must go through."

"Why must the mail get through?" Lily asked, ignorant of the mandates of bureaucracy.

Snape did not know how to explain, because he was rather uninformed himself. He passed his tongue over dry lips. "It just has to," he said, trying to fish for an explanation.

"There must be a reason, you know."

"Uh," he thought quickly, "The Queen's got a Special Letter she's sending to the Prime Minister," he said, realizing afterwards that 10 Downing Street was hardly a train ride away from Buckingham Palace.

Lily accepted this motivation, however. "Oh dear," she said, joining the drama, "And my train's got a whole lot of sick children on it."

"Sick children?" scoffed Snape indignantly. What rubbish!

"Yes, sick children," Lily insisted. "It's during The Blitz" she added in a whisper.

Nodding, Snape obliged to her whimsy. "All right, it's World War Two, and you've got a bleeding bunch of sick children on board. For Christ's sake, young missy," he went on in an exaggerated accent, "you should have said something before. Now I have a lot of good strong men," (he gestured wildly at Petunia) "who'll help you dig out of the snow."

"I'm not digging out of _anything!_ " Petunia resisted.

"Even I, the greatest engine driver on the Railway of Sodor will help," Snape added gravely.

"Oh, thank you so much! The children _do_ so need to get to the hospital for their medicine!" squeaked Lily. "But what'll we use as shovels?"

Snape picked at the flimsy sticks that were caught in the cow-catcher of the second train. "These'll work." He gave one to Petunia, who dropped it because there was a spider's web on it, he gave one to Lily, and he kept one for himself, at which time the 'digging' commenced.

And so they played, long into the afternoon.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

That day at the 'museum' was one of the rare occasions when Severus was so privileged as to share his day with both Lily and the railway. Most often, only one occupied his time in an hour.

Home usually meant no Lily, but plenty of time with the engines. The game began so long ago that Severus could scarce remember. It had first started during one of many instances where Eileen and Tobias were arguing about something or making clumsy drunken love, and Severus could only escape the scene by staying in his room. Occasionally, he was locked there, but it made little difference to him either way. The Engines required all of his attention.

After all, as evidenced by a corresponding entry in his journal, he _was_ the Prince of the Engines of Neverland.

The EoN was originally founded, he wrote, when the steam Engines of Sodor were all being scrapped because Sir Topham Hatt had died, and they were all crying and mourning over the future dominance of the diesels. The Engines had already been gathered together, from the Bluebell Line and the Skarloey Line and the Great Western Line and everywhere else, and all that needed to be done was to line them up at the guillotine (or similar apparatus) and chop them to pieces.

However, by an enormous stroke of luck, someone heard them all crying. It was J.M. Barrie's Wendy Mora Angela Darling (whom Severus equated to Lily very easily) who saw the great distress the Engines were in. By virtue of her brilliance and compassion, she decided that there was only one thing to do—bless each and every one of them with fairy dust from Tinkerbell, and bring them back to the tropical oasis of Neverland.

None of them disagreed, and so it was that very soon after meeting her, they all found themselves at Neverland.

In the meantime, Peter had decided to grow up, so in his stead, Sev, the new Prince of the Lost Boys, had risen to power.

By the most democratic of processes, the Engines (formerly of Sodor) decided to rename themselves the Engines of Neverland, and that they needed some form of government. That meant Sev, of course. This was how he became Prince of the Lost Boys, and the Prince of the Engines of Neverland despite the fact that he was most clearly not an engine. (The engines did not care about taxation without representation, apparently.)

Neverland thus became the setting for the rest of Severus' romps and adventures for many years, some of which included Lily, but more often than not were on his own.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

"Percy!" exclaimed Severus happily when his favorite Engine entered his room, a ghost of the imagination but real in its own way.

"Good day to you, sir," Percy said with a shy smile; he was always awed to be in the presence of The Prince.

"Don't call me sir," Severus said, wrinkling his great nose, "Now, what sort of morning report do you have for me?"

"Well," Percy said, settling down as comfortably as an engine could, "Henrie and Edward have eloped and gotten married."

"Good!" Severus decided. "No—wait—is that bad?"

"Very much so, sir," Percy lamented. "You see, Henrie was, at common-law, wed to Gordon because she has lived in his house for so many years. She also took care of James, who was blinded by that terrible crash many years ago."

"Hm!" Severus said. "But did she love Gordon? Or James?"

"Well," Percy said thoughtfully, "Though she has never really confided in me, I should say not. She never loved either of them, though goodness knows she worked devilishly hard for the rascals, cooking and cleaning and knitting, and all."

Severus had modeled the character of Henrie—who was really, in Rev. Awdry's books, 'Henry'- after his mother. It was due to the distinct lack of girls in the series that he had been driven to add the more feminine 'ie' and make him a her. Gordon was fashioned after his father. He had often thought about his mother and father in the character of the engines, and had decided today that their imminent and completely justifiable separation would finally take place.

"Gordon's a fat, lazy toe-rag though, isn't he?" Severus asked serenely, "And isn't James one of the most irritating engines in the EoN?"

Percy nodded.

"And has not Edward always proven himself to be a nice fellow, and Henrie a nice lady?"

Percy nodded again.

As evidenced by such leading questions, Severus' mind was settled before the conversation even took place. "Well, I won't interfere. It seems to have worked out for the best. Make sure, Percy, that they get a nice little cottage on a lake where they can keep ducks. And it should have a picket-fence and a trellis with climbing roses. And keep that special coal on hand so that Henrie doesn't get sick anymore, though I do think she was so often ill because she had to live with _Gordon_ and _James_ and work as their _slave_ for so long."

"Just so, Prince," Percy replied in neutral tones.

"What of the other engines, Percy?"

Percy nodded. "Well, almost everyone is doing fine. Thomas, Duck and Oliver are faring well together, except Thomas' coach Henrietta likes to cook them too much porridge."

Severus sniffed. "Send her a basket of chocolates, Percy. Porridge is good for you." This was a resentful quotation of his own mother's words, for, though he loved his mum, he could never like oatmeal. His pretending to love it only increased his hatred for it more, like later in life when his enforced hatred of Lily only caused him to fall for her all the more completely.

"Is there anything else, Percy?"

The engine gestured towards the window. "Wendy Mora Angela Darling has come to call upon you, sir. She's in the garden," he added rather unnecessarily.

"Very well, you are dismissed," Severus said quickly, before throwing open the window.

Wendy Mora Angela Darling was nowhere in sight, but he heard someone crying nearby.

It was a long leap from the second story to the grubby garden, so he clambered down the trellis that bore dried-up vines. A bit cut-up with splinters and the like, he wandered over to the birdbath and looked behind it.

Wendy Mora Angela Darling was there. As soon as she saw him, she stood up and embraced him quickly.

"Oh, Prince Severus!" she whispered. "I thought you'd never come!"

He smiled, shy as Percy had been before him.

"It's all right," he said, taking her invisible presence in his arms, "I'm here now." He gave the vision a soft peck on her cheek, and blushed profusely because he wondered what Lily would think if she saw him.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

"We haven't played _Peter Pan_ in a long time, Lily," Severus said, stretching out on the grass beneath their favorite tree.

It was only very recently that Severus had decided to 'grow up' and forsake the EoN. He had passed off leadership to President Toby, who, as oldest of the engines, seemed the most likely candidate. Their Vice-President was The Old Gentleman from the E. Nesbit story.

Still, it seemed to him that some of the engines felt betrayed by the former Prince, and he thought it likely that they were spying on him. Even as he sat there, inches from his dear love Lily, he felt their eyes on him, watching from the bushes.

"Ages," agreed Lily amiably, "Do you want to play now?"

In reply, Severus stood, brushed the grass off the seat of his pants, and glowered at Lily.

"What's your name?" he asked her.

Lily smiled. "Wendy Mora Angela Darling. What's your name?"

"Peter Pan."

"Is that all?"

"Yes." He seemed rather glum.

"I'm sorry."

Shaking his head, he turned to look out an improvised window. "It doesn't matter."

"Where do you live?" Lily was just as good an actress as he was an actor.

With a sad smile, he indicated, "Second to the right, and then straight on till morning." He pretended not to hear the whispering of who he suspected was Percy and Oliver in the bushes.

"What a funny address!" Lily said with a laugh.

"No, it isn't!" Severus, as Peter, was clearly affronted.

"I mean, is that what they put on your letters?"

"Don't get any letters."

"But your mother gets letters."

Severus glared at her, harnessing his frustrations with his biological parents. "Don't _have_ a mother."

Lily jumped up. "Oh Peter, no wonder you were crying!" And, although there was never a line that said she hugged him, Lily hugged Severus tightly.

He bit back a smile; _this_ was the best reason to play _Peter Pan_.

Too soon, he had to brush her off him. "I wasn't crying about _mothers_ , I was crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I _wasn't_ crying."

"It has come off?" Lily asked carefully.

"Yes, it has."

At which point, Lily frowned. "I don't remember the rest, Sev."

Severus could have sworn—again—that he heard a snicker in the tree boughs above them. It seemed that the twins, Douglas and Donald, were also in on the conspiracy.

"I'll go get the book," she exclaimed, oblivious to Severus' discomfort, and she ran off towards her house before he could protest.

He frowned, surveying the empty park, and decided to take matters into his own hands.

"Show yourselves!" he cried, and all sporting abashed expressions, five engines appeared from nowhere.

As he thought, Percy and Oliver were there, as were Douglas and Donald, but he was very surprised to see Edward among them. Edward was a 'good fellow'; he would not be involved in a spy ring if there was not a good reason to do so, Snape thought.

"Now, what were you spying on me for?" The ex-Prince demanded.

All five seemed properly put in their place. Edward, who actually seemed to be their ringleader, advanced slowly.

"We have come," Edward said deliberately, "Because, Prince Severus, we want you back."

Snape frowned. "Why?"

Edward told him. Apparently, a grand battle had occured, because President Toby was now considered too old to manage things well, and his sister Mavis had led a troupe of disgruntled EoN citizens to overthrow Toby. Now Mavis was in power, she was upping the taxes—even on things like tooth-paste, Edward explained—and was being generally unreasonable. She was definitely not ruling well, and in fact, most citizens thought she was ruling very badly. As a result, there was a large movement headed by the Loyalist engines to reinstate Prince Severus and the monarchy.

"I've got the book, Sev!"

Lily had returned, and was currently running across the street towards him.

"All right, I agree," muttered Severus, "We'll talk later, Edward."

"Long live the Prince!" cried all five engines in unison before they left very discreetly.

"Who were you talking to?" Lily asked as she collapsed at Severus' feet.

He looked around, making sure that no one else could hear. "You can keep a secret, can't you?" he asked, and she nodded. She knew all of his secrets, except about the Engines.

He explained them to her, and she listened eagerly. It was really a great story, for Severus was a born storyteller, and Lily listened breathlessly to everything he told her.

The only thing he never mentioned was that _she_ was also in the world, in the form of Wendy Mora Angela Darling.

"That's amazing, Sev!" Lily said intermittently, when she was particularly impressed. Then she laughed. "So they're your imaginary friends?"

There seemed no way to deny this. "Quite so," Severus said, a bit uncomfortable.

"I'd like to play in your world with you, sometime," Lily suggested. He shook his head.

"No, it's very confusing," he insisted. "Let's go back to _Peter Pan_ , okay?"

"Okay. We were at the bit about 'well you can't put it on with soap,'" Lily stated, though she seemed a bit let down. She wanted to play in his world of flying engines and political intrigue.

"Okay." He was already standing, so he helped her up and they resumed their positions in the play.

"Well, you can't put it on with soap," Lily insisted, starting where they left off, "It must be sewn."

At this point, Severus shook his head.

"We've got to re-do it all, Lily," he insisted. "We can't just start there."

He wanted another passionate hug, not least of all because he had opened his stupid mouth and told her all about his most immature source of joy. At least she did not seem to think any less of him afterwards.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

They talked a lot about his imaginary world, but it was a long time before Severus ever let her inside it—years, in fact.

By the time he did do so, she already had come up with her own character.

"I'm going to be Polyhymnia," she declared, apparently having thought about it for a long time.

The pair of them were _finally_ at Hogwarts, and it was a crisp October afternoon in their first term when this momentous occasion took place. Severus was so overjoyed to be there with her, that when she had slyly suggested that they play Engines of Neverland together, he agreed.

"Now, who's Polyhymnia?" he asked, quite relieved that she was not going to claim one of the old engines for whom he already had crafted a character.

"She's the long-lost sister of Oliver. Here, you see," she continued, "Oliver knew he had a sister, but she was sent to scrap because she had a quick tongue. A little like you, Sev," she said with a sweet smile. "Since they worked on different railway lines, he never knew about it until years later, and that's one of the reasons he's so grumpy all the time. He keeps on wishing that he saved his sister."

Little did Lily know that she was, in her own childish fashion, near-predicting Severus' future in the character of Oliver.

"But then," she continued, her eyes alight, "One day, Thomas and Percy were moving the old scrapped engines around, and they discovered Polyhymnia!"

"That's Stepaney's story!" cut in Severus.

"Well, it's Sodor. It can happen more than once!" insisted Lily. "So anyway, they took her and got her all cleaned up, and when they found out who she was, they all had a happy reunion!" She was clearly giddy about the story, so Severus accepted her little side-plot.

He had her write it down in his little Official Memorandums book that he used to record all the goings-on of the engines, before and after their entrance to Neverland.

"What color is she?" he asked of Lily afterwards, and the girl insisted that Polyhymnia was 'violet-purple', and it was thus that Polyhymnia was born. Later, understandably, Polyhymnia became one of his favorite engines.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

"The Loyalists have won, the Loyalists have won!" Lily squealed, running around her back garden enthusiastically. Indeed, the long-waged war between the Loyalists and Mavis' people (the Revolutionaries) had finally ended when Lily and Sev came home from their second term at Hogwarts.

The Loyalists were pro-monarchy, and therefore pro-Prince Severus. The Revolutionaries consisted of Mavis and her followers, who were mostly female engines that Snape had created to satisfy Lily's cravings for Polyhymnia to have friends. The Revolutionaries, informally called the Rebs, were not bad people, Snape maintained, they were just incredibly misguided. Their policies were the obvious problem—he was _not_ ready to surrender his power to the impetuous Mavis. Polyhymnia staunchly agreed, as long as he promised her a mansion when the war was over.

The war was over,conflict finally ended, or at least for another summer. Last summer they had come home to learn that there had been a brief truce instated between the conflicting parties. This meant that the children were free to romp throughout the park and their yards with the Engines and the Lost Boys. The same also applied to the summers before their third and fourth years.

At one point, Mr. Evans even indulged Severus and Lily by taking them to the 'train museum' once more. They played there for six hours until they were so tired and dirty that Mrs. Evans made them both take hot showers before dinner.

All in all, their imaginary bliss was filled with the Engines of Neverland and their adventures, though every once in a while a new character entered their play.

It was only after they entered their fourth year at Hogwarts that they mutually decided not to have secret meetings in broom-closets to talk with the Engines anymore, because people might think they had been snogging. Severus was at an age where peer pressure against kissing a mudblood was particularly strong, and Lily's eyes were already following James Potter around in Potions class.

Snape, however, did not give up the game entirely. Instead of going to Quidditch matches, he stayed in his room to talk to Percy or Polyhymnia, and when he went for a walk around the lake, he was always accompanied by one or two trusted Engines. His fairy-tale was no less magical without Lily's constant presence, though perhaps if he had realized that her interest had waned, he would have been more concerned.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

The summer before fifth year was strange, because Lily was not eager to run around and play Engines anymore. Instead, she was wearing skirts all the time, which were not conducive to a good, healthy outdoor romp. She was playing with make-up, and spent a lot of time indoors with Petunia trying out lipstick and rouge.

Severus tried to make such things applicable to him, but he could not. For a while, he put up with the silliness, sitting and watching the sisters apply their cosmetics, trying not to squirm with boredom. Then, when he realized ignoring the problem it would not dissolve it, he told her that he was going outside. She did not seem to care.

He vented about it to Percy, who suggested that Wendy Mora Angela Darling was growing up a little, and he helped Severus understand that it was just a 'girl thing'. Not that Severus could tell why suddenly there were 'girl things' to be done, he nevertheless accepted it, and went off to play with Percy, without Lily or Wendy Mora Angela Darling.

That summer was very solitary indeed.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

More time passed. It was now after the infamous _Levicorpus_ and 'mudblood' incident, and Severus was crying in a broom closet. He knew now he only had one source of true friends, the Engines of Neverland.

There had been periods over his schooling when his interest in the Engines had waned, and issues of the EoN had been placed on a very far back-burner, but, whenever he was reminded of trains, a wave of guilt for neglecting his engines swept over him, and he called an emergency meeting at his convenience.

It was only when the real world was too painful for him to bear that he fully submerged himself in the world of the engines.

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay," Polyhymnia insisted, comforting Severus in the only way she knew how. Severus, though he had to pretend that she was massaging his back, felt nonetheless comforted at 'hearing' her voice.

Severus continued to cry. "I never meant to make her so mad," he insisted, "I didn't mean to call her a…a mudblood." This last word he said in a dead whisper, for he never wanted to hear it again.

He shook his head fiercely as he came to a major conclusion.

"I'm not going to love anyone or anything anymore," he insisted, "I'm just going to do my schoolwork and my work for you Engines. No one cares about _me_ in the real world."

Being reminded that he was only truly accepted for who he was in an imaginary world made him cry even harder, burrowing himself in Filch's cleaning rags and pretending to hear Polyhymnia shush him.

"You are loved by me," Polyhymnia said gently. "And I know that Wendy Mora Angela Darling loves you."

Snape sniffed. "I never want to think about Wendy Mora Angela Darling again."

Polyhymnia sighed. "Very well. I know she is in pain for you, right now. For the record, Alice has entered Neverland lately, would you like to meet her?"

She meant Alice of Wonderland, though Severus needed no explanation. While Alice Longbottom existed in the real world, she had absolutely no connection to the Alice in question, not even as a remote parallel between the two worlds.

He smiled faintly through his curtain of hair and dismal tears. "I'd like to meet her."

All of a sudden, light accosted them, and Polyhymnia vanished. In her stead was the unhappy caretaker, Filch.

At the time, Filch was really not much older than a student, being in his early twenties. As an orphan, and a squib to boot, there was not much he could pick and choose from in the way of jobs. He had been at Hogwarts a few years, courtesy of Dumbledore and the headmaster's Gryffindor 'generosity', and now he was very surprised to see Severus amongst his cleaning rags.

"Get outta here, you scallywag," he griped, until he realized that Snape was quite wet with tears. "Whads wrong with ye?"

Severus, having vowed to Polyhymnia to have nothing to do with the real world besides schoolwork, said nothing.

Filch, who was pretty incensed for some other reason already, grabbed Severus by the collar. "I waz askin' ye, whads wrong?"

Severus said nothing, the tears leaking from beneath his eyelids. He was ashamed and embarrassed of having been caught so vulnerable.

Filch, knowing what it was like to lose one's heart in a broom closet, grumblingly took Severus' arm and dragged him to his office—thankfully nearby—and sat him down with a good cup of tea and some biscuits. It was the beginning of a very different friendship than any other Severus had known.

Still, he had promised the Engines to be involved, and he did not forget, even when he began to spill his guts to Filch's sympathetic ear.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Snape formally joined the Death Eaters for many reasons, which have been elaborated more comprehensively by other minds, but one of the motives that perhaps only _he_ acknowledged was that he wanted to play out the role of The Prince in real life. (This was reflected in his choice of nicknames among his real-life counterparts, The Half-Blood Prince, besides the fact that it was his mother's maiden name.) In other words, he wanted all the glory, fame, and power he held in the EoN. Little did he realize at the time, this was much more difficult in the real world than he had ever imagined in his play-acting world.

Many times over the years, both in and out of Hogwarts, he mused over how pathetic and childish it was to harbor such fantasies as those he continued to indulge in even more completely now that he was on his own again. But, he argued to himself, since he had no real love in the world after he lost Lily's friendship, could he be blamed for creating an imaginary world that so clearly embraced him?

His personality was completely different in each world. While he grew more sullen, more aloof, more supercilious in the real world, his attitude as far as the engines could see was more gentle-tongued, more involved in the lives of others, and more content. Some, like Polyhymnia, noticed that he had a very disparate personality in the real world, and told him so, but he ignored her, though he internally acknowledged that she was right. No wonder he was not loved in the real world, she assessed; he made no effort to make himself loved.

He found it easier to share the blame, though—with James Potter and James the Red Engine.

It was obvious why James Potter was at fault; _he_ was the one who stole Lily away. However, there had to be some other explanation as to how Severus had lost Wendy Mora Angela Darling. Inspired by the namesake of his real-life aggressor, Snape wrote a brief story recording how James the Red Engine had pilfered his love, Wendy Mora Angela Darling.

The story was not complex; it was too painful to spend much time thinking about. After Henrie had eloped with Edward, James and Gordon had a falling-out, at which point Wendy Mora Angela Darling intervened. She tried to take Henrie's place in the bachelors' home, cooking and cleaning for them and whatnot, and somewhere along the way James fell in love with her. He had an irascible nature, so that made it hard for her to like him very much, and as a result he did a Phantom-of-the-Opera trick and whisked her away. How he did this, when he was (in Severus' fanon) quite blind, Severus never bothered to explain.

In any case, at the same time that Lily became a Potter, Wendy Mora Angela Darling was also forever lost.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Albus Dumbledore, because he was so nosy, knew that there was something else significant that made Severus tick, though he accepted that the boy's love for Lily was incredible. Sometimes, he tried to find out about the EoN, but Severus kept his stronghold. Never would he reveal their presence to Dumbledore; it would be betrayal.

However, one day, Dumbledore got a glimpse of the secret world in Severus' mind.

It was a Sunday, and Severus was in the hospital wing after the demanding efforts of the previous night's Death Eater escapades. He was soundly asleep, thanks to a potent Dreamless Sleep draught he had brewed for the school's stores. Since his main ailment was exhaustion, Poppy Pomfrey left him alone. Therefore, the coast was clear when Dumbledore came to see the Potions Master.

Snape was a brilliant Occlumens, but even he let his guard down in his sleep, Dumbledore supposed. The great wizard touched the eyelids of the sleeping man just enough so that he could get a glimpse of Snape's irises, and then he delved.

He was shocked to find an image in Severus' mind of none other than the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, but the difference was that there was a meter-high pile of papers to his right, and a host of steam engines bustling around without rails, going hither and thither with the ease of humans.

"The Prince is being spied upon in his sleep!" an old brown Engine at Snape's left was calling aloud, "All engines please pay attention, and prepare to attack the intruder!"

Dumbledore was intensely confused. Had he entered a nightmare? Or were the engines in Snape's mind reacting to _his_ presence?

"Prince Severus," the old brown engine insisted, "I believe there's a spy looking into your mind."

"Really?" Snape's voice resonated as though he were using a _sonorous._ "That's not very nice, now, is it? Get them the hell out of here. They're violating the code of the EoN."

"Tell him to get out and then attack, or attack immediately?"

"Oh, tell him, I suppose. Who is it, Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore got very nervous, and prepared to back out.

"The intruder is the man from your world whom you call Dumbledore."

Rather surprised and scared, Dumbledore fairly leaped out of Severus' mind.

No sooner had he thus retreated than Snape awoke in the real world and looked squarely into Dumbledore's face.

"You violated my privacy," Snape said with a growl. Though he was furious, he could yet think quickly. He hoped that Dumbledore would assume it was some sort of dream rather than a visualization of the imaginary world Severus had created in his mind. If Dumbledore realized that how real it was to him, there would be no telling how the old man might hold it over him.

The old man looked concerned. "Severus," he asked, "What was all that?"

"If I were to hazard a guess, my subconscious mingling with a nightmare."

Dumbledore just nodded, not saying anything else. "Go back to sleep," he insisted, having learned his lesson. Some things, he realized, were best left to their owners.

However, he inferred from the experience that perhaps Severus was not all alone, at least in one world.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

The whole EoN business became less and less urgent with the escalation of the real-life war against Voldemort.

Alice of Neverland, formerly of Wonderland, provided all of the romance he needed, no matter how often he thought about Wendy Mora Angela Darling and her real-life counterpart. He pretended Alice existed in more ways than one; he set up real-life candlelight dinners in his home, solely for her benefit, and they had a riotous bedroom life together. There was so much one could do with a woman who bent entirely to one's will. All he had to do was close his eyes and pretend that the wrapped-up length of blankets on his bed was a sleeping young woman, and that it was not his own hands touching him, but rather those of some very lovely lady. Severus kept some of his blankets twisted in a long lump and his maintained nice soft hands for that reason alone.

Then there came the day where he heard the prophecy, and all of the consequences that followed. The EoN and all of its idiosyncrasies could not help him recover.

Indeed, he blamed the EoN for his having lost her in the first place, though rationally he knew it was all his own fault. He might have tried more to be a part of her life if he did not have them, he reasoned accurately. He would not have submerged himself into his imaginary world, he would not have lost touch with everything around him. He might have been able to save Lily if he had not been so consumed with them.

He had no contact with them for over a year after Lily's death.

Alice was what eventually brought him back into the fold. He was cold, he was lonely, and he had already consumed half a bottle of Firewhisky when she swept through the door. It had been a particularly rough day with Dumbledore, and an absolutely rotten one with the Dark Lord.

He had nothing to say when he saw her, and neither did she. Instead, her warm, smooth hands began to pass through his straggly hair, and he responded in kind.

Thus the affairs of the Engines of Neverland began to worm their way into his life once more.

Severus hated the fact that he thought about them so much, because he saw how childish they were, but they were friends who had stuck with him all his life; never ephemeral, never complaining about his changing of alliances in the real world. They accepted his activities in the real world as having nothing to do with them, except insofar as they affected his mood in their world. He was satisfied with this separation of his real life and imaginary life.

Being a teacher at Hogwarts gave Severus far less freedom to deal with the Engines, of course, since most of the time he was surrounded by fellow teachers, imbecilic students, and the like. However, he maintained steady contact through 'Bedside conferences' wherein Toby or Percy—whichever was most in favor at the present—told him all about the various goings-on, and he made decisions and signed bills etc. Alice still came to visit him, not every day but once or twice a week as he required her. It was not the ideal way to manage a kingdom, but they all understood that the real world was becoming very demanding, and were honored that he still spared them so much attention in spite of those other commitments.

He thought it best not to think about how pathetic the whole thing was anymore, because he knew he would still continue with it. His main excuse was that talking to the empty room and focusing on problems beyond the bounds of reality helped him to sleep, though he knew it was partly a lie. Sometimes he lay awake for hours talking to Percy, or Toby, or Polyhymnia, or Alice, and he felt their comradeship strongly. They were his friends. Lily was a closed subject between them.

Then, because the War against Voldemort had finally ended, another war in the imaginary realm of Neverland began.

Again, it was political conflict between the Loyalists and the Revolutionaries upon which the war centered. School did not interfere much with the EoN's trials and tribulations now that his business as a spy had concluded for the time being. He had new real-world associates that he had to contend with sometimes, but most of the time it was fairly easy to focus on the goings-on of his imaginary world.

It was like being Dumbledore, or even the Dark Lord, Snape decided. He loved to order around his spies (who were very good at evading death) and his militias, for he felt very powerful and well-regarded. Being so busy with the War of Neverland was very distracting. He almost forgot about Alice, though he could never quite subdue his longing for Wendy Mora Angela Darling.

Although he had known about the imminent kidnapping plans for months, he denied that it would ever take place. Of course, he actually knew it would, because his imaginary kidnapping was to coincide with certain events in his real-world life. He spent the entire term trying to evade the Revolutionaries; which in real-life meant he started getting up in the middle of the night and stalking the castle, only to return to his bed-chamber and see that it had been ransacked by the Rebs.

He only held bed-side conferences once a week, and on different days, so that the Rebs would never know what plans were being initiated by the head of the Loyalists. He arranged a lot of meetings in the dark, in his favorite cloak-and-dagger style. These clandestine discussions with his top spies and cleverest advisors were made even more enjoyable by the fact that he often caught young students out of bed when he went hither and thither through the halls of Hogwarts.

Incidentally, the kidnapping occurred on the last day of term, and if none of the Hogwarts teachers wondered why Snape left without a good-bye, nobody questioned it either.

His prison was Spinner's End, and there he remained, completely at the mercy of Mavis and her wicked goons. He was treated nicely, at least, and was allowed to do experiments and have visitors. He was even occasionally allowed to go out to Diagon Alley under the watchful eye of Mavis herself as long as he paid for his own dinner. He had a very placid existence in prison until Percy organized a rescue at the end of August and put him on the Hogwarts Express.

A kidnapping of this nature occurred the next year, and the next year, and the next year, and in fact every year until the Dark Lord returned on the back of Quirrell's head.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Miraculously, when the Dark Lord returned in the real world, the war in Neverland finally came to a close, and the EoN's Loyalist and Revolutionary factions became no more than political parties. Snape found this disgusting, but not nearly so time-consuming on his part. One war ended, only to have another begin in reality.

As it was during the first war against Voldemort, Neverland ceased to be very important most of the time, save for the occasional weekly conference, or an informal chat with Toby or Percy over a bottle of elf-made wine, if not something stronger.

Unfortunately, there was one thorn in his side that never left him alone: Lily.

Reminded of her by the advent of Harry Potter on the scene, he spent a lot of time angry at the EoN for the attention they had diverted from the love of his life when she was living, but felt that he could not justifiably take it out on them. To Percy the green Engine, he confided his anger and frustration, but Percy reminded him that these feelings were misplaced. It had always been Severus' prerogative to determine the amount of his interaction with the imaginary world. All he really had to do was decide that they did not exist anymore to remove himself from them altogether.

When he thought about this, Severus realized the truth of Percy's words. Now, he would never do such a thing, for he knew that the original choice had ultimately been his, not the Engines'. He had chosen to sponsor their presence in his life, and not Lily's. This revelation made him quite despondent. None of the his past mistakes were either the fault of James Potter or James the Red Engine; it was only his own choices that he could blame. And oh, how he berated himself!

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

On his deathbed, Severus reflected over his years as the Prince of Neverland, and wondered if any other self-respecting human being had lived so thoroughly in two worlds. He doubted it.

After Potter and Granger had abandoned him in the Shrieking Shack, Severus called forth the entire EoN for an emergency meeting. Their numbers had grown with the years, including new steam engines from other places, and even some little engines that were the 'children' of such noble ones as Henrie and Edward. As they watched their Prince die, they blew their whistles sadly. Most of them were crying, even though this was forbidden because the tears would rust their wheels. Polyhymnia, he saw, was the saddest, and she kept close to his head, watching over him with the pain of a guardian angel with her hands tied.

He knew they could do nothing to help him, and he wanted no help.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Severus' illogical love of trains was never talked about by anyone, a well-kept secret between two souls who eventually went very disparate ways. While his love of Lily was eventually made very public when it was discovered by his dearly-revered one's loud-mouthed son, the other was never revealed to the world because of its lack of importance to all except Severus.

One of the worst aspects of the Engines of Neverland, Snape admitted, was that they distracted him from the real world. However, philosophically countered, it was understandable why he would prefer the imaginary world to the real one; he was admired and loved in the former, and not in the latter. Arguably, it was inevitable that he would be unloved in the real one because of his bristly personality, but it crossed his mind on a few occasions that perhaps he only used such an abrasive act to keep people from getting close to him so that he would never be hurt again; so that he would never lose sight of the imaginary world and the Engines could not be threatened.

His logical conclusion was that indulging in the imaginary world of the EoN had been to his own detriment. For years he had wondered why he was so emotionally weak, that maybe if he had overcome his obsession, he might have had better success in his real world pursuits. That would have been the logical thing to do.

Perhaps the truth was that his person was simply incapable of running on logic as opposed to emotion. After all, had he ever succeeded in his quest to convert his steam-motivated innards to be compatible with diesel fuel, his wheels might never have run along the tracks at all.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

_I infused a lot of my childhood into this story, so please let me know what you thought. It may be a little silly, and probably very unlikely, but it could be one further explanation for his personality._

_Do review. And, if it'll motivate you, you can mention something about your own imaginary friends, if you like._

**Author's Note:**

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